Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

When Fleming left, the old panic gripped him again. Lindsay stood at the foot of the memorial breathing slowly and deeply, trying to clear his mind. What had possessed him to be so reckless with Mary’s trust? Careless, careless, unnecessary words and Fleming was right, he could not play the innocent, he had understood the risk he was running. He had dictated his report to a Wren, short hard sentences, the brutal click of the typewriter keys, blind to any loyalty or feeling beyond duty to the war effort. At least, ‘duty’, ‘the greater good’ was how he chose to present it to others. But he knew it was guilt too. Guilt gnawing at him always, that desperate craving for release from the burden of being a man who was dragged from the Atlantic the night two hundred lives were lost. It distorted, warped his perspective like a fairground mirror. Mary could see that, understood and loved him none the less. He had to find her to try and explain and tell her he was so very sorry.

Nobody answered the bell at Lord North Street. The shutters were open and he wondered for a moment if Mary was in the house but had resolved not to see him. He pulled the bell again but no one came. But she was not the sort of woman who would skulk behind curtains to avoid a painful conversation. Perhaps she had left London for a few days. He would have to chase her by phone, and the nearest and most convenient place to begin was at the interrogators’ office in Sanctuary Buildings. It was a short walk across Dean’s Yard where builders were trying to salvage what they could of the Abbey’s domestic range damaged in the Blitz.

Dick Graham was the only interrogator in the office. He had been sent to the prison but given nothing to do and it rankled.

‘The hero of the hour,’ and he glared at Lindsay over his pince-nez. ‘I expect they’ll give you another medal.’

Lindsay ignored him. First Mary’s uncle. Settling at the desk by the window, he picked up the telephone and began chasing the number for Parliament round the dial. The operator put him through to a stiff assistant who refused to say when she would see Sir David next and only reluctantly promised to say he had called. He was about to try the house in Lord North Street again when Checkland’s secretary presented herself at the edge of the desk: ‘The Colonel said you would want to see this right away,’ and she handed him a plain blue envelope. He took it and slit it open at once. There was a smaller envelope inside and a note in Checkland’s own hand:

Enclosed a note from Leutnant Lange. He is making a good recovery and will be discharged from hospital in the coming week.

He held Lange’s envelope in his right hand and stared at it for what must have been a minute. It was Graham who finally broke into his thoughts: ‘A billet-doux from one of your many admirers in the Division?’

‘Go to hell.’

‘I probably will. And you’ll be there too.’

It was not the time or the place. Lindsay dropped the little envelope into his pocket. There was still no reply from the house. Perhaps he should ring Mary’s brother? It was surely a measure of his desperation that he was even prepared to consider it. What about her parents in Suffolk?

‘Do we have a copy of Debrett ?’

Graham was dictating interrogation notes to one of the clerical assistants. He looked up at Lindsay with a dry smile and stretched a hand over the typewriter to indicate that she should stop hammering the keys.

‘I don’t think they’ll offer you a peerage, old boy.’

‘Do we have a copy of Debrett ?’

‘Would you like some help choosing the title?’

Lindsay half turned to address the clerical assistant: ‘Well?’

‘I’ll fetch it, sir.’

Charnes Hall, and yes, there was a number. An office shared with Graham was not the place to try it and he jotted it down on a piece of paper.

There was a telephone in the small registry down the corridor where the Section kept its records. It had a short flex and he had to stand beside the filing cabinet to use it. He had to dial the number of the exchange twice because on the first attempt, like a tongue-tied teenager, he hung up before the operator had a chance to put him through.

‘Mrs Henderson? Douglas Lindsay here.’

A long uncertain silence.

‘Yes?’

‘May I speak to Mary please?’

‘I don’t know if she’s in the house. Just a minute.’

Her voice was cut finer than her daughter’s, very county. The telephone was probably in a stone-flagged hall because he could hear the long echo of her footsteps as she walked away.

Someone rattled the handle of the registry door. ‘Go away, I’m on the telephone.’

His stomach was churning and the receiver felt damp and heavy in his right hand: ‘Come on, come on .’

Twenty seconds from the condemned cell to the bottom of the scaffold. Every second an hour. But they would have buried him by now. At last he heard footsteps approaching the telephone again and the rattle as Mary picked up the receiver.

‘Lindsay?’

His heart sank many fathoms. It was Mary’s brother.

‘Are you there?’

‘Yes, I’m here, James.’

‘I’m here, sir.’

‘I’m here, sir.’

‘I’ll say this once and once only,’ his voice was trembling with barely repressed fury. ‘She has nothing to say to you. You shit. You used her. You betrayed her. Now leave her alone.’

Bang went the phone. The buzz of an empty line.

Lindsay replaced the receiver carefully, his mind very clear. How strange that the anger of another was calming. He knew what he must do.

It was some hours later that Mary heard he had called and spoken to her brother. If only her mother had dealt with it or her father. She was cross because she could not help feeling sorry for Lindsay and she did not want to.

‘You should have told him to ring back,’ she told her mother. ‘He’s going to think I haven’t the guts to talk to him in person.’

‘I doubt that, darling,’ her mother replied.

But she knew he would not leave it there. He would come to see her, perhaps tomorrow, and she would say what she needed to say. She had rehearsed it all so very carefully — to distraction.

She did not have to wait for the next day. At a little before six o’clock her father called to her from the bottom of the stairs.

‘A military-looking car. Mother thinks it might be your man.’

She had not discussed Lindsay with her parents but they seemed to know everything from James. By the time she had slipped into a mac and wellingtons the Humber was pulling up in front of the stable block. Lindsay jumped out of the car with the restless energy of one who has driven a long distance fast and with single-minded purpose. In spite of herself she could feel a warm rush of affection for him. Head bent a little, she began striding towards the car. Lindsay slammed the door and walked round the back of it to meet her. He was already fumbling for his cigarettes.

‘You could have spoken to me on the telephone,’ she said coolly.

‘That wasn’t the impression your brother gave me.’

She had reached the car now, hands in the pockets of her mac, only a few feet from him. He slipped the cigarettes back into his jacket without taking one.

‘Can I kiss you?’

‘No.’

‘Can we talk?’

‘Yes.’

‘Here?’ And he glanced towards the house.

‘No. We can walk.’

She led him in silence round the stable block and through a brick arch into the walled garden where the roses had been replaced by vegetables and a flock of chickens.

‘It’s quite a house. Seventeenth century?’

She did not answer but walked on, conscious that he was watching her closely. At the far end, she opened a door in the wall and led him across the grass to the edge of a copse. It was already dark beneath the trees, the ground soft, and she could hear him stumbling and slipping and grabbing at branches for support. And she thought of his shiny black shoes and smiled with quiet satisfaction. It was not until they emerged on the other side of the wood that she stopped and turned, arms tightly folded: ‘Well?’